Comment

Comment on Why do people insist on not answering ALL the questions in an email or text message?

Few people can focus enough to read.

I work in a technical field. In the past few years I’ve learned that interacting by email usually requires one-line sentences or bullet points, with any questions being numbered. No fluff, no secondary thoughts or possibilities. Keep it as minimal as possible.

It still fails to elicit a coherent response about half the time, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.

It didn’t use to be like this. But what’s to blame; screen addiction, microplastics, covid, increased stress, … ?

source

Sort:hotnew top

The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Schools (both K-12 and university) keep loosening their expectations of students, and now we have kids starting college with 6th grade reading levels.

School administrators don’t want their graduation stats to look bad, and universities don’t want to lose $$ by flunking students out, so there’s a massive conflict of interest that is ultimately resulting in a disservice to students and society at large.

The other day, I saw this 8th grade graduation exam from a small town in Kentucky in 1912, and it drives home how much things have changed:

Image

source
- otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  
  What is a Personal Pronoun?
  
  A whole bunch of angry Americans would fail to answer that question correctly these days…
  
  source
- spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  That might explain younger workers, but those in their 50s and above are just as bad.
  
  source
- whostosay@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  I’m sorry but what the fuck is number 2 under arithmetic?
  
  source
- adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  …but some things don’t. “Locate Servia on a map?”
  
  They can’t even blame that on autocorrect; obviously the text was originally written on a qwerty keyboard though.
  
  source
  - Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    In 1912, “Servia” was the accepted English spelling. British journalists started using “Serbia” around 1914.
    
    source
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I don’t disagree it’s a focus thing for many people. I’m often stunned at the lack of comprehension or attention to detail using any medium, even in person (also technical field).

Like look, I just said to do what you’re asking would require 250 firewall rules…why are you now talking as if firewall rules aren’t required? I even went through the simplest math out loud during this meeting, so everyone would understand how I came up with that number and didn’t just pull it out of my ass.

People pay attention to what they want to pay attention to (or as my grandfather would say - people hear what they want to hear). If those questions aren’t a high priority for their own work, they simply don’t see them.

For OP: email is a terrible medium for such things, unless there’s been a conversation about it, and this is part of moving a project forward. Anything out of left field isn’t important to your audience, and… people dislike comitting to anything in email. As you work with people up the food chain, you’ll find less and less happens via verifiable comms like email (which is archived).

source
garbagebagel@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Everyone should be required to take Plain Language writing courses.

There’s a lot of factors at play, but who cares really. Writing in plain language makes it accessible for everyone and doesn’t hurt anyone.

source
RippleEffect@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Yes. If you’re going to add context, it better be after your main point or main question. Most people just want to know what you’re ultimately trying to convey and will not read the entire thing.

source